A bit late to this but I'm a diehard fan of Jeon Yeobeen ever since Be Melodramatic, so this has been on my to-watch list for a long time. A Time Called You is about Han Junhee (Jeon Yeobeen) who loses her boyfriend Gu Yeonjun (Ahn Hyoseop) in a tragic accident in 2023, who then travels back to 1998 and inhabits the body of high school student Kwon Minju (also Jeon Yeobeen), where she meets Nam Siheon (also Ahn Hyoseop) who has the same face as her deceased boyfriend. Yes it's time travel, and its complicated!
This show is a remake of Taiwanese drama Someday or One Day, but I have never watched the original so I went into this fairly neutral and could enjoy it for what it was without anything to compare to.
There was one period in the mid 2010s where time travel was the theme of every other kdrama, so I'm a little wary of them. But I was pleasantly surprised by the use of time travel here, and thought the plotting was fairly tight with the time travelling being used to good effect for the key plot points. Of course, this benefited from being a remake, since they writers could just improve on what was already written.
However, the writing to build up the romance was lacking. Somehow, it felt like the time that Siheon and Junhee spent together in 1998 wasn't that long and I didn't quite buy that they would move mountains for each other. Junhee and Siheon (in Yeonjun's body) - yes, because they had spent over a decade together. But during the first time travel, Junhee didn't know Siheon was Yeonjun, and Siheon would have just been exposed to the "new" Minju (Junhee in Minju's body). I understand that this remake was shorter than the original, so perhaps it would have benefited from a just an episode more to really build their connection. It also didn't help that Jeon Yeobeen and Ahn Hyoseop's chemistry wasn't the strongest, which was a pity. JYB has had good chemistry with previous male partners (both Han Joonwoo and Son Sukku in Be Melodramatic, obviously Song Joongki in Vincenzo), so maybe she acts better with similar-aged partners.
That aside, I was blown away by Jeon Yeobeen's acting as two roles but actually FOUR - Junhee, Minju, Junhee in Minju's body and Minju pretending to be Junhee. Especially the last 3 which are all essentially Jeon Yeobeen in a school uniform, but somehow portrayed so differently that we could pretty easily tell who was controlling the body. Ahn Hyoseop also had to play several characters (Siheon in 1998, Siheon in Yeonjun's body, the original Yeonjun, and older Siheon), but his was less complex as essentially most were the same character. He is clearly a less experienced actor and it showed - he wasn't BAD but I thought a better actor could have done much more. He was probably best as 1998 Siheon who was playful and confused, but I thought the depth of emotions from older Siheon was really lacking.
The third of the main trio was Jung Ingyu (Kang Hoon), Siheon's best friend who had a crush on Minju. This is my first time watching him and I thought he was unfortunately really really flat. Just because he's a nice character doesn't mean he has to be boring, but his tone and expressions were pretty one note. Side note, I was very happy to see Park Hyukkwon playing a nice character as Minju's uncle, because he's always playing these slimy and weaselly characters!
Directing wise, it was a gorgeously shot drama. Many people have noted how unrealistically gorgeous the high school was. In fact, some of the scenic shots felt a little too unnecessarily pretty, like the cherry blossoms falling when the 1998 trio were riding bicycles LOL. As standard for Netflix dramas, the OST wasn't memorable, other than that one song used for time travelling that played again and again.
Overall, it was pretty decent and actually slightly exceeded my expectations (I really lowered them after reading the reviews), but not a must watch unless you're a fan of the leads imo.